Senseless act kills father of three

It was going to be a fantastic weekend. Gary and Lisa Naquin, married since 2001, together since 1997, had a surprise in store last Friday, Jan. 27, for their two boys, 11-year-old Tylor and 5-year-old Caden. Both had received straight A’s on their report cards the week prior, and Gary wanted to do something special for them.

“He got off work early that day,” said Lisa Naquin, 33. “We had rented a cabin at Boomtown and we were going to take them fishing. They’ve got a little place there to build a fire, so we were going to build a campfire and roast marshmallows. That was our reward to them.”

The groceries had been bought, the fishing poles were in the back of the truck – which Gary had just bought a week earlier – and the boys had just been picked up from school Friday afternoon in Groves and the Naquins were headed to Boomtown in Rose City. Gary, 34, was driving his 2006 Dodge Ram, Tylor was sitting behind him and Lisa, who was in the passenger seat, and Caden was sitting behind her in the back seat when Gary merged onto US-69 northbound from Highway 73 westbound.

“We were joking around and talking about who was going to catch the biggest fish,” Lisa said of the conversation in the truck just before their lives changed instantly.

Traveling in the left hand lane of the highway, where the speed limit is 70 mph, Gary’s truck slammed into the back of a 2004 Freightliner truck operated by Kansas City Southern, which had slammed on its brakes after Zola Wilson’s Hyundai Accent had come to an abrupt stop on a busy highway at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon.

Wilson would later tell police that she was upset after a “rock from the tire of the KCS truck hit her windshield and cracked it.” According to a probable cause arrest warrant, Wilson stated that after the rock hit her windshield, she turned on her emergency flashers, passed the truck in the right-hand lane and then got “directly in front of the vehicle” the warrant states. Wilson then “applied her brakes in front of the KCS truck, almost coming to a complete stop. The driver of the KCS truck, due to Wilson abruptly applying her brakes, struck Wilson’s vehicle, causing this three-vehicle major accident.”

Attempts to reach Wilson, who was charged last Friday with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury, were unsuccessful as of Wednesday. However, Wilson, who is free on bond pending possible manslaughter charges after Gary Naquin died from his injuries Monday, was very combative when reached by phone at her home in Port Arthur Wednesday night.

“My attorney is talking to the press! Bye-Bye!” Wilson said before hanging up the phone and declining to give her attorney’s name. When reached again by phone a few minutes later, the person answering, when asked for Wilson’s attorney, altered his or her voice and said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about; I think you have the wrong number” and promptly hung up.

While we harbor no disrespect for the Wall Street Journal who called us “that scrappy little paper from Southeast Texas,” we prefer to think of ourselves as simple seekers of the truth. We’re of the opinion that headlines and sound bites never tell the whole story. Our readers demand all the facts, facets and flavors of every story or event. And, they expect to be informed, educated and stirred to action.